MoCA has added Arris as a contributor member and an OEM of the MoCA coax digital video technology. Arris is a key trusted supplier to cable operators in the US, which is one of the next ports of call for MoCA to enable multi-room DVR.
Memorylink, a specialist in field programmable logic arrays has filed a suit against Motorola charging intellectual property theft, alleging intent to defraud on an invention that relates to video circuitry. The thrust of the argument is that Memorylink was duped into signing over patents to Motorola and seeks treble damages from the profits Motorola has since realized
The US ‘upfront’ advertising marketplace has been wrapped up in just a few weeks, which is what is supposed to happen. Over the past few years it has been stretched out over months. The Upfront is when the US broadcast TV networks take advance sales for the autumn season of new shows and over the past two years exactly what constituted a viewer has been difficult to define due to the use widespread use of DVRs. Associated Press said ABC landed $2.5 billion in advance commitments but sold more inventory than last year to achieve it, and NBC and CBS were both up a minor amount on last year in advance bookings, while Fox wasn’t saying. The gains were probably in line with inflation, no better.
Nokia has been voted the top consumer brand in India, and is thought of as the most trusted brand. Last year it was only 71st in the same poll conducted by The Economic Times.
Widevine Technologies said this week it has expanded its capabilities to secure content traveling between multiple devices within an in-home network, with an upgrade to version 4.2 of its Cypher product. The new release adds hardware acceleration on Sigma Designs 8364 chip for the Scientific Atlanta set tops and DVRs, which now support multi-room DVR. Cypher 4.2 also includes support for network address translation (NAT) for unlimited expansion of the consumer domain to accommodate STBs, DVRs, PCs, handsets and portable media players.
Conditional Access player Irdeto will supply Bangalore based multi-system operator Atria Convergence Technologies in a 30 month roll-out as part of the operator’s plans to migrate analog cable customers to a new digital platform. Atria only recently introduced digital cable with over 140 premium digital channels.
Motorola launched a film downloading service in Europe this week for its handsets, initially in the UK, but expected to launch in France, Germany, Italy and Spain shortly. The films cost of £5.99 ($12) per movie and £8.99 ($18)for the newer movies, and are part of a deal with US studio Paramount. The films are protected using OMA DRM version 2.0 and encoded in H.264. Films are downloaded to a PC, where we don’t imagine they can’t be viewed because of the DRM, and then sideloaded onto the phone.
US cellular operator Verizon Wireless, has agreed to acquire Alltel, the fifth largest cellular operator in the US, in a deal that has been expected for years due to the compatibility of the two company’s systems, and which will once again make Verizon Wireless the largest cellular operator there, with 80 million customers. Vodafone owns just under half of Verizon Wireless. Both companies currently use the CDMA 2000 digital cellular system designed by Qualcomm and the deal was worth $28.1 billion, made up of $5.9 billion in cash and the assumption of $22.2 billion in debt. This knocks on the head any wild talk of Verizon buying Sprint, which we never liked as an idea anyway.
The WiMAX community is finally addressing that thorny issue of royalties surrounding licensing of WiMAX, but don’t expect an easy ride. WiMAX supporters have formed the Open Patent Alliance (OPA) consisting at present of Intel, Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco (which acquired Navini but has its own technology too) plus two operators Clearwire and partner Sprint Nextel. We are shocked not to see Nokia and Motorola in the pool, given the work each has contributed but they may join later, and we would expect companies with heavy IPR such as Qualcomm to plow their own furrow, while Nortel is another absentee, which may require its own license.
France Telecom has finally mounted a much rumored bid for Scandinavian operator TeliaSonera to create the world’s fourth largest telecoms group, but TeliaSonera has immediately rejected it. The offer was worth around $42 billion, deemed way too low. Meanwhile France Telecom’s share price began sliding straight away by around 10% after the announcement. This is not a deal made in heaven.